This brief examines the coverage and trends within the Colorado health care marketplace in 2006.Much like the rest of the country, Colorado has grappled with significant medical cost inflation and double-digit increases in health insurance premiums.
The end result has been a commensurate increase in the ranks of the uninsured, attributable by experts to higher costs, but also Colorado’s shrinking small group insurance market and limits of public programs. Over the years, a variety of legislative and regulatory initiatives have been implemented to mitigate this decrease in access, although health care policy experts and opinion leaders are divided on whether the initiatives have achieved desired results.